


The fever I feel, the fake and the real

by arbitrarily



Category: Dublin Murder Squad Series - Tana French
Genre: Anal Sex, Drugs Made Them Do It, Dubious Consent, Fisting, Identity Porn, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Sex Pollen (Via Drug Use), Undercover Work Used As Excuse To Have Sex They’ve Always Wanted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:33:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23480026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/pseuds/arbitrarily
Summary: Frank asks a favor. Stephen should've said no.
Relationships: Frank Mackey/Stephen Moran
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18
Collections: Smut 4 Smut 2020





	The fever I feel, the fake and the real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plutonianshores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutonianshores/gifts).



> Title from "No Harm," Editors.
> 
> Timeline-wise, this is set some time after _The Secret Place_ but before _The Trespasser_.

Undercovers are bait all the time.  
THE LIKENESS

“I got a favor to ask.”

That was how this started. That was how anything started where Frank Mackey was concerned: he wanted something from you. 

“How you doing there, Frank? Long time no see,” Stephen said, a mocking drawl that he regretted to realize did not suit him in the slightest. Frank recognized it too; he laughed, the mockery authentic coming from his mouth.

“Oh, I’m golden. Could be better still, if you do me one for.”

This wasn’t a conversation for broad daylight, or as broad and light as a Dublin’s winter morning had on offer. Stephen wondered, with an idle curiosity he knew better than to presume would ever be answered, if Frank had been waiting for him. If he knew Stephen stopped by this overpriced cafe on Friday mornings and he knew he bought the same expensive coffee and bacon sandwich. If there were a great many thing Frank knew about Stephen. If Stephen had left the door to himself unlocked, and without his knowledge, Frank pilfered him on the regular. 

Better not to know. 

Stephen had planned to head straight to Dublin Castle with his breakfast in hand, but not with Frank Mackey on his heels. Instead, he took a seat at a corner table. Frank followed suit. 

“Tell me, which is it you think I am exactly? Generous or easy?”

“I think you’re kind.” Frank said it like a very different four-letter word. “I think you like your good deeds, maybe even more when they go punished. Tell me, sunshine, what’re your thoughts on martyrdom?”

Stephen lifted the lid off his coffee for something to do with his hands. “You got a funny way of asking a man for a favor.”

“I know you. You like a bit of chase before the prize. Would you prefer I took to my knees instead?”

Stephen exhaled and it nearly sounded like a laugh. Talking to Frank was like navigating a maze that changed with each turn you took. New walls, closed paths. No doubling back, not with Frank. If you turned around, you’d only find him there, waiting for you. Ready to herd you to the destination he wanted you. 

Frank leaned forward. “Since I assume I have your attention, let me set you straight on facts then, Young Stephen. There’s only one thing in God’s great earth better than me doing one over for you. And that’s me owing you one. You do this for me? I put your name down in my little book, and I put you in red, red as the hair on your head there. And I owe you one. And you? You can cash it in when it suits, I swear it on my life.” He paused, his mouth tilting up into the worst kind of grin. “You’d be a goddamn fool to walk away from this.”

Stephen wasn’t surprised by the pitch. Frank had a gift to him—he knew not only how to make a favor sound compulsory, but also as if the idea had been your very own. As if you could expect to hear, when it all went tits-up (and it would, no question) Frank say: I told you it was a bad idea.

He also knew how Frank worked from hard-won experience: future relationships were drawn by the deed done for him in the past. If you wanted something from Frank, you had to give first. Mackey might’ve been a locked box, but Stephen had found a way to get more than one peek inside. 

Stephen squinted at him, as if narrowed vision might afford him better clarity. Clairvoyance, even. It didn’t. The part that bothered Stephen the most, like metal against a filling, was that he could not in good conscience say he owed him nothing.

Frank grinned. “One night only. Don’t you trust me, babe?”

In a far more clever, more perfect world, Stephen would be better than this. He would know how to look Frank Mackey in the eye and he would know how to say, simple and no strings attached, a single word. _No_. He’d say: you’re on your own.

Instead, in this world, he agreed.

“I want you to know I’m doing this against my better judgment,” he heard himself say.

Frank’s eyes flashed brightly. “As if I could ask for anything more.”

And that was all experience was, wasn’t it? Learning your lesson too late. Learning it after the fact.

“The less you know the better.” It was what Frank told him in the car, parked on a dark Dublin street. As dangerous an edict as anything, true or most like false, to come out of Mackey’s mouth. “You follow my lead.”

It was the first sign of trouble. 

Frank wanted information, that was why they were here. “Greatest currency in the world that is, information.” Perhaps that was why Frank insisted on keeping Stephen in the dark. 

The second sign of trouble was the venue. While Fiabhras was a club with an unassuming public face—darkened front windows, a black gaping front door, the name of the joint conspicuously placed on a plaque like a historical monument—its reputation preceded it. 

“You brought me to a sex club?”

“Look at that,” Frank said as they were ushered inside. “He blushes.”

Stephen, despite anything Frank might say to the contrary, was no blushing schoolboy. All the same, he had never visited let alone frequented what passed for Dublin’s demimonde. Frank, he saw, wore their company as light and easy as anything else: Dublin police, the grounds of St. Kilda’s, advancing age made known by the lines about his mouth and his perpetually narrowed eyes. Nothing touched him. Nothing came close to the tightly reined control he kept, not only of himself, but those around him. Control appeared to extend even so far as to Samson, the hulking proprietor of Fiabhras.

Enter the third sign of trouble: the utter stillness of Frank, Stephen's hair all but standing on end, when later that night Samson asked him—“Can you feel it yet?”

Their shot glasses sat before them, empty. The taste was cloying and sweet, neither enough to disguise the bitterness that coated Stephen’s tongue. Stephen frowned, anxiety beginning to climb his throat like the worst sort of bile.

“Don’t look at me like that—you’ll love it. You’ll especially love what it does to your boy.” Stephen could feel his face flush red. He tried to muscle that heat down, failed. “He’ll beg you for anything you can give him, and then some.”

Frank didn’t react, not in any obvious way. Stephen knew that only meant danger. He couldn’t decide who for. He knew, when Frank was running the game, it was all cheeky talk, that sharp grin, flash of teeth. The bright eyes dancing with possibility, the pleasure that ran with getting what you wanted when you wanted it. 

Frank clasped his hands together between his knees and leaned forward. “I advise you tell me precisely what the fuck you stuck in me and mine’s drink before I decide I might want to do something about the affront, yeah?”

“It’s a gem of a thing, really. Don’t got a name for it, not yet. Still market testing, you could say.”

“That’s not an answer, mate.”

Samson shrugged. “It's a fuck drug, what more you want me to say? Your cock’ll be at and demanding attention for the better part of the night and into tomorrow. You can thank us later. The first go's gratis.”

Frank’s jaw was clenched, and it was then that Stephen recognized it. Frank wasn’t just angry—he was afraid. Stephen felt a matching swoop of fear, low in his gut. He could feel something else stirring in him too, vital and demanding and hungry, as if an animal waking from a long nap. Muscles stretched, ready to run.

Frank smiled, and if Stephen didn’t know him any better he’d be able to say he didn’t see it waver. “No worries,” Frank said. “I got this.”

Frank sequestered the both of them away in the small office he kept on Harcourt Street. Frank was a man who liked his hiding places. The office was small and cluttered, dusty. Felt as if they both couldn’t fit in here, not without crashing into each other. There were files and paperwork everywhere, though Stephen was certain that disorganization was just another disguise for Frank. That if he had asked him to find something in this mess he’d know exactly where to dig for it. Even all in disarray, his desk remained empty. There was no real personality to be found in here. That cleared. What more could Stephen have expected. Frank only ever wore his true self on the outside when he knew it would go remarked as fake. 

Stephen’s legs already felt shaky, as if he’d run fast and hard. He took a seat on the old sofa while Frank paced over to his desk. It wasn’t just Stephen’s legs though—all of him ached. He was sweating, afraid. He flexed his hands as if to reassure himself that he could still move. He could still control himself. He glanced up at Frank. He was sweating, too, a strained expression tightening his face, the effort to smooth it over apparent. 

The physical symptoms were easier to focus on. The desperation scratching its way closer and closer to the surface, that was far worse. Stephen clenched his hands into fists again. Humiliation had begun to trip through him, that it’d be Frank of all people who got to see him completely undone. That Frank himself, affected as he might be, still appeared as if he might muscle through this and it was Stephen who struggled with restraint. 

He heard Frank take a deep breath in. Stephen closed his eyes. Even that, the sound of him, breathing, was enough to spark something in him. He breathed deeply, too. He got to his feet, unable to sit still any longer. Stephen’s eyes were open now. He moved back towards the door, as if trying to put as much distance between himself and Frank, even as Frank stepped out from behind his desk. 

“We got ourselves in quite the fix here, yeah?” Frank said. He might’ve sounded casual, conversational, if it weren’t how his voice had dipped down, husky and low. Like it was last call at the pub and he’d made his choice.

“Now, I’d say you got yourself a couple of options here, before time makes the decision for you and you only get the one.”

Stephen’s pulse was already rapid in his throat—he could barely speak over it. “And what’s the one then?”

Frank held himself very still. It was a near commendable thing, that he could stand there, leaned back against his desk, seemingly as unconcerned as anything. If you didn’t know—if you didn’t know _him_ —he appeared unfazed. Stephen liked to think he knew him, if only a little. Maybe not all his tells; with a man like Frank, there were too many masks to learn. But he was primed, he was on edge. His teeth were clenched tight enough to make the muscle at his jaw flutter. His hands were curled around the edge of his desk, white-knuckled. Stephen was witnessing something rare: a man like him forced to learn what it felt like to be on the losing end of a power struggle. 

“I said, what’s the one then?” Stephen said. 

“Me.”

Stephen didn’t move. Inaction was a choice, too, wasn’t it? If he just stood here, if he let the clock run out, then he was making the decision, wasn’t he? _Don’t make me have to say it out loud_ , that was what he thought, near as desperate as the drug boiling through him. 

“I didn’t bring you here for this, kid. I want you to know.”

Of all things, that was what decided it for him. Stephen sucked a harsh breath in. His hands began to make clumsy but quick work of his belt. “If you’re gonna fuck me, I’d rather you didn’t call me that.” His voice sounded strange to him, too thick, raspy—fucked already.

“What would you have me call you then?” Frank still hadn’t moved.

Stephen snorted. He got it, utterly and completely, in that moment. He was never gonna see the world as Frank did. He didn’t see himself the way Frank saw himself: a shapeshifter, capable of becoming anyone but himself at any given time. “My name should suffice, I’d reckon.”

“Stephen.”

Yeah, that sounded good. Sounded right. He wanted to ask Frank who he was right now, who he thought he was, if the distinction mattered, but saying anything more was an effort outside his reach. He was hungry, he had never been this hungry, and his flesh was all but vibrating from the energy it took to simply stand still. Not to touch him. 

Stephen’s face felt too hot, but he lifted it all the same. He felt stupid, if not brave. “I want you to know,” he said, each word dragged from a part of him, deep and dark, oil slick and ungraspable, “just because this is happening off the clock and fucking Undercover, that doesn’t make it not real.” Stupid, not brave, he decided. It was the drug; he decided that, too. It was hitting him harder now. It was making him run his mouth, at least five paces ahead of his brain. It was a similar carelessness to a good drunk, before the blackout hit, as if responsibility was a rumor someone once told you about that wouldn’t show up, bitter and mocking, until the following morning. But it was different too, more treacherous. He was restless. An anxiety thrummed near angry in his blood. He wanted to share it. 

Frank fixed him with a look. Blue eyes sharp as anything, the humor in them gone. He was as serious as Stephen had ever seen him. Deadly. “I know this is real,” he said. 

Still, neither of them moved. 

Stephen’s heart was beating too hard and too fast. Imagine it, Stephen thought. He’d meet his end in the name of pride. Too proud to get on his knees and take what he wanted. The thought was quick but loud, drowning out anything else in his head. He wanted this. It clanged like an alarm. No, it was like working a dead-end case until finally, you saw it. The missing piece. The scene made sense now, now that you knew. It all made sense, any and everything Stephen had let Frank Mackey do to him in his life—he only let him because he wanted him. 

Frank took a single step forward, his hand curled into a fist at his side. He was watching him. Did he want him to say it out loud? Is that what this was? Frank always had an intimidating face, but it was even more so now, this close and this heated. This focused on him. He knew now what it felt like to have that attention settled solely on him. It was like approaching a black hole, the dark certainty you would be swallowed and disappear. Consumed. Gone. 

He eyed Frank in kind, his own wariness gone. Something worse had slotted in its place. This close, Stephen was slightly taller than him, but much narrower. Frank was all rough and tumble bulk, solid. He pictured taking him to the ground, holding him down. He’d be in charge for once; he’d make him take it. He’d make him know what it felt like, to be the other man. To be Stephen. 

He sucked in a harsh breath. Frank caught it. Of course Frank did. Even now, up to his eyeballs in experimental fucking amphetamines, he was observant as all hell. Frank came closer. And like anything else when it came to Frank Mackey, Stephen was trapped.

Stephen’s heart beat rabbit fast against his ribs. Frank was close enough now he could all but fucking taste him. 

Stephen looked down. He could see the thump of blood in Frank’s neck, rapid. He played a good game, he tried to keep a cool head, but even Frank couldn’t fight the rush of chemicals in him. Maybe, Stephen thought, this would be as close as they would ever come to an equal playing field. Maybe such a place could never exist. Maybe, Stephen would finally learn the lesson his entire life had tried to teach him: you took what you got.

He pressed his mouth to Frank’s throat, tongue wet against his fluttering pulse. Tasted the salt of his sweat, a hint of aftershave, acidic and hot, which made him want to laugh. The leather of his jacket. Flesh. Lit his brain up like a bloody Christmas tree. A tremble passed through his limbs, satisfying the hunger forced upon him. He pushed his body against Frank’s and sunk his teeth in, sucked. Frank jerked against him bodily, accompanied by a gravel-thick groan that made Stephen roll his hips into him. Frank’s shoulders were solid under his hands—it’d take more than a little effort to knock him off his center.

Frank pushed him back roughly. Stephen’s head fell back against the door, mouth still parted open. Frank kissed him then, if you could call such an assault a kiss. Nasty and mean, all spit and maybe even spite, teeth. Stephen tasted blood, metallic and hot in his mouth, and he growled. The word _kiss_ seemed nonsensical to him: too small, too innocent, for what they were doing to each other.

Frank shoved at Stephen’s already loosened trousers, let them drop to his knees. He got Stephen’s cock in his hand, his grip already punishingly tight. It took hardly any effort: Stephen came quickly, his back pressed against the door, gasping. There was a brief flicker of relief, but not enough. It did nothing to dull the edge, it wasn’t nearly enough. Frank was still touching him, overwhelming skirting towards pain despite Stephen’s need for more. A sound too close to a whimper left his mouth, entered Frank’s. 

“That’s it, that’s it then,” Frank was saying. Nothing comforting about it, still a little bit of that goading that was second nature for him, but even he sounded caught in his own undertow of desperation. It was almost as if he was pleading with him. 

Stephen tipped his head back against the door. His mouth came away from Frank’s with a wet sound, a string of spit connecting them until it broke. Stephen gasped, tried to breathe. With Frank pressed to him like this, he could feel he was all but vibrating against him. He could feel each catch and quiver of Frank’s muscles, the tension as he held himself back. He dragged a rough hand through Frank’s hair, taking liberties now. Taking what he wanted. He knew what he wanted. 

“Fuck me,” he said.

Stephen was on his knees on Frank’s couch, naked. 

He could hear Frank behind him, as he undressed quickly. He heard him spit, and then with the same haste, he felt first one hand on the curve of his ass and then Frank’s fingers as they pushed first against and then in him. Stephen made a sound as if he’d been struck. The spit wasn’t nearly enough, but his body still opened, still pushed back, against Frank. Demanded more.

Frank was more than happy to give it to him. The blunt head of Frank’s cock against him was too much, even as Stephen’s stomach hollowed out with want. His entire body went taut, his fingers curled into the worn fabric of the sofa. Frank was saying something behind him, but Stephen wasn’t listening. He was trying to breathe, he was trying to think, he was trying to do anything more than catch fire. 

“You have to relax,” that was what Frank was saying. His teeth were grit tight, Stephen could hear the strain of that, too. And Stephen tried. He inhaled deeply, he felt that push against him again, he felt Frank enter him, and then that was all there was for him—the aching stretch, the satisfying fullness where Frank entered him. It was too much. It was exactly what he needed. Stephen winced, but when he opened his mouth all he said was, “More.” He said, "Harder." He got what he asked for. He exhaled a gasping, snarling breath that Frank echoed back to him, mouth humid and hot against the back of his neck as he bent to him. He wanted Frank to bite him, didn’t think he had the language to ask for it. Didn’t have anything more than every point on his body where he could feel him. Where he was inside him, burning as hot as he was. 

There was that same dark secret from earlier crowding the back of his mind, even though his head felt empty and feverish. The weight of Frank pressed heavy on him, the length of his body sweaty and too warm over his, and there it was again—he wanted this. That was what the voice in the back of his mind was saying, smug and pleased. _You wanted this_. And fucking hell, maybe he did. Maybe there was always that part of him that swelled with something more than pride each time Frank appeared. When he took a seat across from him. When he used him. Maybe, that same sick part of him said, he wanted to be used.

Stephen bucked back against him as Frank came. His hands did not loosen their grip on Stephen’s hips even as he felt him pulse inside of him, despite the sharp bitten-off noises that sounded near surprised. He slumped slack against Stephen when he finished but he did not pull away. Stephen throbbed between his legs, tried to rub off against the rough upholstery, but Frank was still holding him up by the hips. He had stayed inside of him, his cock softened, inevitable he would stiffen again. 

Frank’s movements were clumsy and jerky as he rolled Stephen onto his back. Stephen’s chest heaved, his cock slapped wet against his stomach. Stephen could feel that demanding pressure building inside of him again already, wanted to cry with it. He felt as much as heard a wheezing breath from Frank; he felt the twitch of the cock inside of him. He grabbed for Stephen’s wrist and brought the hand attached up to Stephen’s mouth. He pressed two fingers into Stephen’s mouth, told him to suck. Stephen did as he was told, the restlessness ratcheting up, near intolerable now. He rolled his hips down against Frank and Frank growled. Shoved Stephen’s thighs open wider, an unrestrained wildness in him that maybe should’ve frightened him. It occurred to Stephen he would do anything he asked of him. Would let him do anything he wanted to him. For just a beat, he thought it might be mutual. That should have scared him even more.

He could feel Frank hardening inside of him. All of Stephen was clenched tight, seized up, desperate for Frank to keep fucking him. He said as much, his own fingers dropping wetly from his mouth, and all Frank said in reply was, “Yeah, yeah,” again and again. With some effort, Frank pulled himself up. He pushed himself that much closer, that much deeper. Stephen’s back arched and he whined. Frank’s hand was back around Stephen’s wrist, spit-slick and slippery in his grasp. He pulled on Stephen’s arm. 

“Put your fingers in me. I want you to put your fingers in me.” Christ, that alone was near enough to set Stephen off again. As it were, between the command and Frank’s face—flushed, glassy-eyed, ravenous to the point of madness—it took too long a moment for Stephen to obey. Instead he rocked his hips down again, fucking himself on him, unable to do anything else. “I said,” Frank started to say, and then there was no need. The angle was awkward as hell, the muscles of Stephen’s shoulder protesting as he reached, sorry excuse for abdominal muscles protesting as he curled up against Frank, but he managed. He worked one spit-slick finger into him to the first knuckle. Frank pitched forward, gasping, panting. Stephen was unable to think, to breathe. He was inside of Frank. He heard frantic breathing that sounded not unlike sobbing and scarcely recognized it as himself. He didn’t care; he was coming, splattered wet between his body and Frank's, still to no relief. 

Stephen fell back, his arms and hands limp at his sides. Frank didn’t stop. The shit that Frank was saying now, it was unclear if it was actually him or if it was the drug. Stephen wanted it not to matter. He wanted Frank to keep talking. “Look at you, Stephen.” His mouth was as hot as the words he said against the length of Stephen’s throat. “You’d take anything, wouldn’t you? Anything I’d give you. My whole fucking hand, if I gave it to you.”

Stephen’s response was only a low groan, pleading and greedy despite the exhaustion and overstimulation swamping his body, muffled against the arm he threw over his face. It apparently served as enough of an answer. He felt Frank’s fingers as they traced where Stephen was stretched around Frank’s cock. He did it again, clearly liking the noises Stephen was making. He slid a finger in alongside his cock and Stephen bucked, a wordless groan, all messy vowels. He felt himself tighten around him and heard Frank’s answering grunt as he came in him again. As he felt him come again. Stephen squeezed his eyes shut, breath coming too fast to be anything normal. He was empty then, sudden and intolerable, and a snarl built in his chest. He opened his eyes, tried to focus. 

He was just as quickly full again—first with Frank’s fingers, and then, impossibly, as promised, his entire hand. He used his own come to ease the way, and the very thought of it—the _sound_ of it—made Stephen whimper. Frank’s fist was in him, and Frank was still speaking, but Stephen couldn’t hear a goddamn word of it. There was a buzz in his head, and he’d swear it, it coursed through his entire body, electric and undeniable. He felt so full, he had never been so full, Frank was hitting him just right with each twist of his fist, his knuckles brushing against a part of him too raw and too real, he was left shaking. He managed to glance down his body, and he could see Frank’s other arm moving. He had a hand between his own legs, pumping his own cock. “Jesus, fuck,” Stephen gasped, head tilted back, vision swimming. He felt the brush of something hot and wet against his rim, dimly acknowledged it as Frank’s tongue, and that was it, he was gone. He came again, weaker this time, barely spilling against the mess already collected and drying over his stomach. Barely able to hold himself up. 

When he was able to focus again, all he saw was Frank. 

Frank’s face was slack, a disquieting fear evident in his eyes. He crawled back up Stephen’s body and his own body messily rutted against his, no grace to it, just desperation. His cock slicked against his, and Stephen twitched. The grip of Frank’s hands were cruelly tight; he’d leave marks, same as Stephen was leaving marks on him—bite marks livid and red down his throat, his neck, his shoulders, at his jaw, anywhere and everywhere he could get his mouth. Anywhere long enough to sink his teeth in. He had not even realized he had been doing it until now.

“I can’t stop,” Frank groaned. “Christ, I can’t stop. Stephen, please. Please.”

Stephen reached between them, and he squeezed their cocks too tightly in his grip. Stephen still felt open, empty, clenching around nothing. 

“Give it to me,” Stephen said. “I want it. I want you to. I want you. I always,” and then he groaned, too far gone to say more. To incriminate himself any more than he already had.

Frank’s hand on the side of Stephen’s face was almost gentle. Stephen turned into it. He tried to keep his eyes open. Stephen had always assumed that nothing about Frank was ever straight-on. There was always a motive hidden in the dark heart, at the center, of anything he said or did. Maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe, quite simply, Frank was always hiding in plain sight.

With his head clear, Stephen could begin to take stock. For one thing, his back was throbbing. Everything was throbbing. 

Frank had come back to himself, too. Or, no, the ugly truth standing tall in the center of the room: neither of them had ever left themselves to begin with. Not really. Frank looked on the point of saying something so Stephen quickly looked away. Couldn’t bear to hear whatever he might have to say. He tried to gather up his clothes, ignore the used and aching quality of his body. The mess of it.

Frank did not cover himself. “I owe you an apology.” His tone was wrong for him, near formal. Stephen didn’t think Frank would even address a stranger like that. Despite that, this, Stephen knew, was a win. Frank Mackey did not give out apologies, not willingly. Not without a cost. Not until he feared consequences might be a very real thing to have to live with.

Still, Stephen moved abruptly, his head lifted along with his hand, body tense. “Please, don’t. Don’t say anything.”

Stephen knew about consequences. He knew there were certain things you could not walk away from. Certain glimpses into other people, into what rested below the surface, you could not forget. This was one of those times—he was certain of it. He was afraid of it. When Stephen hit the street, the sun was just beginning to rise. He walked. He ached. He could still feel Frank. 

Stephen knew one last thing—Frank would find him again when he was ready. 


End file.
